Flying alone - Day 26

91. Please write about a life experience that has influenced your intellectual and personal growth.

                As I’ve spoken about this several times before, I believe that living in different countries is something that has given me new experiences in life. Living abroad, in the sense away from my cousins and grandmother, my parents would often allow me to travel home to Bombay for breaks to spend time with my cousins. Since I’ve travelled so often, my parents allowed me to travel by myself. Ever since then, I’ve enjoyed travelling alone. From shopping at the airport to simply drinking a cappuccino, I’ve worried my parents several times to allow me to travel unaccompanied.

                Although I still enjoy my experience of travelling alone as I live in a boarding school, there was this one incident that made me think twice about travelling alone. It still didn’t stop me from doing so. This incident took place back in 8^th grade. I was travelling back from Oman to return home to Saudi after visiting my old friends there. The event that created this little sense of hatred towards travelling alone took place while I was returning. I had my mom’s cell phone in case of an emergency, but as a 13 year old, I didn’t realize how quickly I could run out of money. In other words, while my stay in Oman, I called my friends there often, and ended up spending all the money. While at the airport, I had issues getting through immigration, and when I tried to call my parents, I found out I was out of money. As a nervous 13 year old, I couldn’t bring the courage together to ask someone else for their phone. I was completely lost and scared by this point. After coming to a realization that I was going to miss my flight soon, I hoped that my parents would call me soon.  After being tensed for about an hour, my dad called me to check on me. He was able to provide all the details just in time for me to board my flight. After getting yelled at by my dad, I realized how irresponsible I was during this trip.

                This didn’t change my decision on travelling alone, as I continue to do so. In all excitement to go back home this break, I can’t wait to travel to Bahrain airport, which is one of the best airports I’ve been to. The experience of travelling alone has taught me a lot about independence and simply how awesome travelling alone can be. 13 more days!  (Insert overly joyful smiley here)

Me at Bahrain Airport a long time ago.